I'm interested in the meaning of the place-name “Juvre”. In the northern part of the Danish island Rømø in the North Sea is a village named Juvre, a beach named Juvre Sand and a waterway named Juvre Dyb. I've come across 7 interpretations of the name Juvre. But the Rømø Local Historical Society only considers 2 of them as viable. In their newsletter, the first proposal they quote comes from Thade Petersen who was a Rømø native, historian and priest. While editor of the Sønderjydske aarbøger (South-Jutlandic Yearbook), every year he wrote a new installment of his series about Rømø. In 1906 concerning the origin of the name “Juvre”, he says:

My tentative translation:
Here it is not episcopate ownership but surely cathedral chapter ownership that has been crucial. Already in 1291 the [cathedral] chapter [of Ribe] had extensive properties in Nørrlandet, i.e. the northern part of Rømø. Listed in [a book of historical records titled] Ribe Oldemoder under the canon's common goods are:
“De rimò ῑn curia òri xvi metrete butiri ripensis mensure et cxx casei integri.
De alia curia in rimà ix metrete ripenses butiri.”
(For the Øre-Farm on Rømø, Ribe's measure/due portion: 16 barrels of butter and 120 fresh cheeses.
For a second farm on Rømø, [portion due] to Ribe: 9 barrels of butter.)
In the first entry, to make sense, the translation should read: “For the Øre-Farm (or a farm in Øre) on Rømø”, and must not be named according to the [Latin] word order: “For Rømø at the Øre-farm”. I do not see any reason for Eduard Moritz to translate it: “For Øri's farm”. There is however some more probability that [as also proposed by Moritz] the name is derived from the nearby beach, than that it contains some personal name. In my opinion, this [name] is the current town-name Juvre or Juerr as it sounds in the vernacular.
We would otherwise take the first name in 1542 in the list of charges imposed by Tørninglen [a deanery – a group of parishes – in the Diocese of Ribe]. There one passage reads “Yre” and another “Ure” or “Orrye”. The latter names are added in square brackets, which demonstrate that one can leave them out of consideration. Whether linguistically there is no obstacle to the transition Øre — Yre— Juerr, I am not able to judge. I believe that there is probability for the latter transition, as I see support for that by the fact that the word “Yver” (Udder) is pronounced like “Juerr” on Rømø. If it is at least just as likely that the former transition could have occurred, there is scarcely anything at all the matter with believing that Oldemoder's Øri is the current Juvre.

So apparently, the name Juvre may come from a very busy dairy farm called “Udder-Farm”.

I highlighted two Danish passages, one in red and one in blue, that I'm not sure I understand. I also highlighted my feeble attempts to translate them into English. I'd appreciate any help with either of these passages, or with any other Danish or Latin that I might have mis-translated.

Hej Mathea
I have looked around a bit - not as much as you though :-)
And I find that "øri" is the best bet- it should be an old Danish word for "gravelly beach".
I think that is plausible.
The tides will - I think - tend to leave the gravel and take the finer sand away, especially where the current is strong.
As it will be at the rip current (hestehullet) the hole in the sandbars created by the current (in the old days the Danish word for sandbars were "heste" (horses).
"ør" is used as ending in many Danish places fx. Helsingør (Elsinor)
there "ør" also means "gravelly beach" and "Helsing" means "Hals" (neck) of Øresund (Oresund).
A place where you could drag your viking boat onto shore on a "gravelly beach" at the "neck" of Oresund.
Fine translation by the way!! :-)
Cheers
solbjerg (my small farm on Bornholm)

Mathea wrote:I'm interested in the meaning of the place-name “Juvre”. In the northern part of the Danish island Rømø in the North Sea is a village named Juvre, a beach named Juvre Sand and a waterway named Juvre Dyb. I've come across 7 interpretations of the name Juvre. But the Rømø Local Historical Society only considers 2 of them as viable. In their newsletter, the first proposal they quote comes from Thade Petersen who was a Rømø native, historian and priest. While editor of the Sønderjydske aarbøger (South-Jutlandic Yearbook), every year he wrote a new installment of his series about Rømø. In 1906 concerning the origin of the name “Juvre”, he says:

My tentative translation:
Here it is not episcopate ownership but surely cathedral chapter ownership that has been crucial. Already in 1291 the [cathedral] chapter [of Ribe] had extensive properties in Nørrlandet, i.e. the northern part of Rømø. Listed in [a book of historical records titled] Ribe Oldemoder under the canon's common goods are:
“De rimò ῑn curia òri xvi metrete butiri ripensis mensure et cxx casei integri.
De alia curia in rimà ix metrete ripenses butiri.”
(For the Øre-Farm on Rømø, Ribe's measure/due portion: 16 barrels of butter and 120 fresh cheeses.
For a second farm on Rømø, [portion due] to Ribe: 9 barrels of butter.)
In the first entry, to make sense, the translation should read: “For the Øre-Farm (or a farm in Øre) on Rømø”, and must not be named according to the [Latin] word order: “For Rømø at the Øre-farm”. I do not see any reason for Eduard Moritz to translate it: “For Øri's farm”. There is however some more probability that [as also proposed by Moritz] the name is derived from the nearby beach, than that it contains some personal name. In my opinion, this [name] is the current town-name Juvre or Juerr as it sounds in the vernacular.
We would otherwise take the first name in 1542 in the list of charges imposed by Tørninglen [a deanery – a group of parishes – in the Diocese of Ribe]. There one passage reads “Yre” and another “Ure” or “Orrye”. The latter names are added in square brackets, which demonstrate that one can leave them out of consideration. Whether linguistically there is no obstacle to the transition Øre — Yre— Juerr, I am not able to judge. I believe that there is probability for the latter transition, as I see support for that by the fact that the word “Yver” (Udder) is pronounced like “Juerr” on Rømø. If it is at least just as likely that the former transition could have occurred, there is scarcely anything at all the matter with believing that Oldemoder's Øri is the current Juvre.

So apparently, the name Juvre may come from a very busy dairy farm called “Udder-Farm”.

I highlighted two Danish passages, one in red and one in blue, that I'm not sure I understand. I also highlighted my feeble attempts to translate them into English. I'd appreciate any help with either of these passages, or with any other Danish or Latin that I might have mis-translated.

The theory that Juvre means “gravelly beach” was the second theory that the Rømø Local Historical Society thought was viable. (They brought up 2 theories as possible.) But they didn't give any convincing argument like you now have. :-) It never occurred to me that any part of the Juvre coastline would have been exposed to a strong tidal current. But it must have been, because historically Juvre wasn't attached to and sheltered by the sandy beach Juvre Sand, which didn't connect to Rømø until around the 1800s.

I would have quoted the second possible meaning of Juvre found in the society's 2007 newsletter, but I didn't want to make my first post even longer than it already was! After the society credits Thade Petersen for coming up with one possible meaning, they then tell us:

Loose Translation:
In the work Sønderjyske Stednavne (Southern-Jutlandic Place-Names) many different designations are disclosed, specifically from land-books and land-registry archives in the 1500s and 1600s (Iffuere, Jeffre, Iffre, Jyffre, Iuere), and the conclusion is that there is no satisfactory interpretation of the name. It is stated at the end, however, that the form øri in Ribe Oldemoder could go back to an Old Danish/Old Norse word meaning “gravelly beach” – what Juvre may have been in the beginning.

I just love your translation “gravelly beach”. I had such trouble with the term gruset strandbred that I had planned to ask you how it best translates, but you have answered the question before I even asked it! That's pretty neat!! :-) Now I'm no longer fuzzy about that term. Tallet is another term I can't figure out. I don't know if 1500-tallet means “1500s” or “15th century”. Which is it? I hope you can clear that up for me.

By the way, most of these early names of Juvre – Iffuere, Jeffre, Iffre, Jyffre, Iuere – bear a strong resemblance to the word Yver which means “udder” and which Petersen told us is pronounced just like Juerr, the current native name for Juvre. So pardon the pun, but I am not udderly convinced that Juvre doesn't mean “Udder(-Farm)”.

And you own a farm on Bornholm! What a lovely island! Although it's located at about the same latitude as Rømø, it's at a very different longitude, with a much wider range of elevations and in a much calmer sea. I just found out to my udder amazement that one of the main industries on Bornholm is dairy farming. Does your farm have any cows or goats who are milked?

Again, thank you so very much!
Mathea (in Southern California)

PS: Just as I was about to send this out, I noticed all the extra info you added on to your original message. Wow! That is all so interesting about "heste" and "ør"! Now I think I have to admit the udder defeat of the "Udder(-Farm)" meaning!

Hej Mathea
How come you know Danish so well?
Your wordplay on utter and udder made me smile :-)
I think that it is possible to make a case for udder (yver) having something to do with the rip current, hand-milking the tits will give you a sort of ripcurrent when the milk bursts forth. And the deep trench that the current gouges out ends further out to sea where it lay down the sand in a form that may be seen as looking like an udder. (Take a look at aerial photographs of a coastline)
But I still think that ør (øri) is the most probable explanation, one might have to contact an expert in the Rømø dialect to find out if juvre could have been transformed from ør to juvre over time in that location. I don't even know how much German has influenced the Sønderjyllandske (South Jutland) dialect there.
The Danish town Korsør is also named after a gravelly beach and the word kors (cross) which probably was used as a navigation mark in the old days. It is a ferry harbour - much in use before the Storebælt (great belt) bridge was built. The Swedish army crossed there over the ice in the 1650(ies) (i sekstenhundredetallet - 1600s) (the 17th century) during a hard winter that froze the bælt.
Dragør a location in Greater Copenhagen on the island Amager at the beach/mouth/bottom of Øresund where you were able to drag your boats onto the "ør".
The tide in the inner Danish waterways is not very pronounced but the current through Storebælt and Lillebælt and Øresund can be rather strong. On Bornholm the flood and ebb only have a difference of maximum 20 cm I think while it at Rømø probably is in the neighbourhood of 1,5 m (1.5 m in US notation)
I have leased out all my land to another farmer and just live here on my farm without any stock at all. I am a pensioner (almost 68 years old)
The farm is only 13 "tønder land" (almost exactly 7 ha) so I have had to have another job to make ends meet when I was tilling my land myself. (concrete constructions mostly)
At one time I produced outdoor pigs and raised calves.
We are now in 2000 tallet but in the 21 century (århundrede)
This can be a little confusing but go back and you will see that the first century (0-100 ends at one hundred, the second ends at 200 - and so on) Actually all the fuss about changing into the new millennium was misdated - it should have been in 1-1-2001 that the new millennium started. :-) There is no year zero - that is a point between year -1 and year 1.
"Riding the horses along the beach" would also have had the meaning in the old times that you walked on the sandbars along the beach, and had to take care if you had to cross a "horse-hole" during high water especially. :-)
My farm is located almost precisely on the 15° longitude (GMT+1) and the time here is true except during the (sommertid) where we set our clocks to 1 hour earlier.
Cheers
solbjerg
p.s. I just had the thought that juvre could have come from the German word "Junger" (meaning younger) land, or possibly from French "jeune" (young). Some land created by the currents by the action of the "ør" that over the years had become arable.
p.p.s.
ur → scree / talus probably have the same root as ør
ur also means watch (measures time as we have defined it)
ur can also be seen as measuring time as the age of the rock/cliff by the amount of rubble that time, sun, cold, wind and water have accumulated at the bottom of the cliff. :-)
Urtid is not the stone age (but older) - rather the age of stones, - that is to say the archean time.
Ur- is used also to designate the original form/time/situation etc.
urkomisk → comical in essence - inherently comical

Mathea wrote:Hej Solbjerg

Tak så meget!!!

The theory that Juvre means “gravelly beach” was the second theory that the Rømø Local Historical Society thought was viable. (They brought up 2 theories as possible.) But they didn't give any convincing argument like you now have. :-) It never occurred to me that any part of the Juvre coastline would have been exposed to a strong tidal current. But it must have been, because historically Juvre wasn't attached to and sheltered by the sandy beach Juvre Sand, which didn't connect to Rømø until around the 1800s.

I would have quoted the second possible meaning of Juvre found in the society's 2007 newsletter, but I didn't want to make my first post even longer than it already was! After the society credits Thade Petersen for coming up with one possible meaning, they then tell us:

Loose Translation:
In the work Sønderjyske Stednavne (Southern-Jutlandic Place-Names) many different designations are disclosed, specifically from land-books and land-registry archives in the 1500s and 1600s (Iffuere, Jeffre, Iffre, Jyffre, Iuere), and the conclusion is that there is no satisfactory interpretation of the name. It is stated at the end, however, that the form øri in Ribe Oldemoder could go back to an Old Danish/Old Norse word meaning “gravelly beach” – what Juvre may have been in the beginning.

I just love your translation “gravelly beach”. I had such trouble with the term gruset strandbred that I had planned to ask you how it best translates, but you have answered the question before I even asked it! That's pretty neat!! :-) Now I'm no longer fuzzy about that term. Tallet is another term I can't figure out. I don't know if 1500-tallet means “1500s” or “15th century”. Which is it? I hope you can clear that up for me.

By the way, most of these early names of Juvre – Iffuere, Jeffre, Iffre, Jyffre, Iuere – bear a strong resemblance to the word Yver which means “udder” and which Petersen told us is pronounced just like Juerr, the current native name for Juvre. So pardon the pun, but I am not udderly convinced that Juvre doesn't mean “Udder(-Farm)”.

And you own a farm on Bornholm! What a lovely island! Although it's located at about the same latitude as Rømø, it's at a very different longitude, with a much wider range of elevations and in a much calmer sea. I just found out to my udder amazement that one of the main industries on Bornholm is dairy farming. Does your farm have any cows or goats who are milked?

Again, thank you so very much!
Mathea (in Southern California)

PS: Just as I was about to send this out, I noticed all the extra info you added on to your original message. Wow! That is all so interesting about "heste" and "ør"! Now I think I have to admit the udder defeat of the "Udder(-Farm)" meaning!

Actually I don't know Danish well. In fact I don't know it at all. Wish I did! Instead I cheat by using Google Translate, the free online automatic translator. If you don't like how it translates a word or term, you just put the mouse over it, and it will show you alternate translations. Of course there are bugs. So if you try to translate “i sekstenhundrede tallet”, it gives you “in the 16 century” with the alternate translation “in the 16th century”. So that's why I got so confused about “tallet”. Thanks for clearing that up for me!

As far as knowing a language well, I've got to ask you – How do you know English so darn well?! Last night just before I sent you the post, my hubby Joe said “He's not gonna understand the play on the words udder and utter”. I said to him, “Maybe he will.” But then later I thought to myself, “Nah! How he could see the joke? I'll have to explain it to him.” But to my surprise, you understand perfectly. In fact you write English so well, it seems like you studied in an English-speaking country.

That was so cool when you wrote:
"I think that it is possible to make a case for udder (yver) having something to do with the rip current, hand-milking the tits will give you a sort of ripcurrent when the milk bursts forth. And the deep trench that the current gouges out ends further out to sea where it lay down the sand in a form that may be seen as looking like an udder. (Take a look at aerial photographs of a coastline)"

Maybe this is how Juvre Sand formed. All I know is that just before Juvre Sand connected to Rømø as a beach, it was a sandbank-island. That's a low-lying sandy island with no vegetation, as it floods during storm tides or unusually high tides. If Juvre Sand was created from rip currents, it could have taken on an udder-shape and grown in size to ultimately rise above sea-level. So maybe Juvre Sand means “Udder Sand”.
Thanks for telling me to check aerial photographs of coastlines. I just came across an aerial photo at http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/dbird ... stline.jpg
Some of these underwater sand formations seem to resemble an udder at their far end!

The next best thing to contacting an expert in the Rømø dialect might be to contact the Rømø Local Historical Society. I believe their website has some e-mail addresses. So maybe that's how to find out why Thade Petersen thought Yre and Yver were related.

Well, I find it quite interesting to hear about these place-names ending in “ør” and then there's “Øresund”. I had no idea that “ør(e)” was so prevalent.

OK, I must not understand the term tønder land. Supposedly that's an acre or acres of land. You say that 13 tønderland is equivalent to 7 hectares. But since a hectare is 2.471 acres, that works out to about 16.4 acres, not 13. But maybe this is 13 Danish acres? I'm not surprised to hear that you were a farmer because you told me you own a farm. But I was surprised to hear that you own a farm.

“Riding the horses along the beach” sounds like a fun activity to me. But it certainly wasn't in old-time Denmark. I'm still trying to figure out why sandbars used to be called heste. I'm guessing it's because the “heste-hullet” could be big enough to swallow a horse. Whatever the reason, I like the name.

Thanks for the fun lesson on “ur”. Now I just need to learn how to pronounce it. It blows me away that you know English words I'm not familiar with! After all, English is my only language! But until today, I never heard of “scree” or “talus” or “archean”. I just found out these are all geological terms. Are you a geologist? Or a champ at Scrabble?

Hi Mathea
Very impressive that you have undertaken the effort of writing this thread without knowing any Danish (my hat is off!)
I had ten years in school here in Denmark, but I started early reading English books - in the 8 form I think I read "Gone with the wind" instead of reading the examination requirement :-)
But I was too strong and had too much energy to stay in school so I started working on farms and in the forests.
Consequently I have no more formal education, but curiosity, interest and reading will take you a long way.

Best job I have ever had was hauling out logs from the forest using a sledge and a horse - in Sweden (not pecuniary - but the job in itself.
I still do all my cutting and splitting of wood myself, with a chainsaw and an axe - last summer 45 cubic meters of oak (45 steres). Should be enough for 2 normal winters. :-)
Did it leisurely so it took me 4-5 weeks - about 1½ m³ per day - working about half the day.

Juvre does sound like it could come from German influence or from a French cleric - not all clerics were well versed in Latin!
Even Avia Ripensis is translated a bit wrong I think "Grandmother of Ribe" and not Great-grandmother of Ribe, but I suppose they chose the "Oldemoder" to take more into account that the records were very old.

I have created and are still endavouring to create a Danish ↔ English dictionary here at Freelang - present status more than 116,000 words.

1 "tønde land" equals 5516.2 m² tønde means barrel and the expression comes from how much land could be sowed by hand - spreading the grains using 1 barrel of grain - a barrel of grain equals 112 kg they say (wheat about 120 kg, rye about 90 kg, barley about 100 kg and oat about 80 kg in my experience)
I think the "morgen (area)" in Hungary comes the closest to a "tønde land", there were many "morgens" - Germany, The Netherlands, South Africa and more but they had widely different areas. A "morgen area" was what you could plough in a morning - a morning being about half a day. (using oxen or horses)
A rule of thumb say that if you detract 10% from the area of a "tønde land" in m², and multiply the result by 2 you have approximately 1 ha. Or the other way round add 10% to 1 ha and divide the result by 2 :-)
An acre is about 3/4 of a "tønde land" another rule of thumb :-)

With a little leap of the imagination one can see the sandbars as horsebacks, and when there then comes a channel from the ripcurrent it is an obvious possibility to see it as a hole in the horse' back.
If you stand between sandbars and see another person on the sandbar you will have an experience like looking up at a mounted rider I imagine.

The u in ur is pronounced in Danish exactly like "you" if you remove the sound of the yo and only retain the u sound like - uh! uhr! I suppose. No, I just checked and in these instances the u is spoken more like an a, but you have a fair likeness in many words with un---, Ugh!

Cheers
solbjerg
p.s.

I am just a hum-drum guy
one who says: Come what may!
Doing my Sisyphonian chore
hoping not to reach the core.

Mathea wrote:Hej Solbjerg

Actually I don't know Danish well. In fact I don't know it at all. Wish I did! Instead I cheat by using Google Translate, the free online automatic translator. If you don't like how it translates a word or term, you just put the mouse over it, and it will show you alternate translations. Of course there are bugs. So if you try to translate “i sekstenhundrede tallet”, it gives you “in the 16 century” with the alternate translation “in the 16th century”. So that's why I got so confused about “tallet”. Thanks for clearing that up for me!

As far as knowing a language well, I've got to ask you – How do you know English so darn well?! Last night just before I sent you the post, my hubby Joe said “He's not gonna understand the play on the words udder and utter”. I said to him, “Maybe he will.” But then later I thought to myself, “Nah! How he could see the joke? I'll have to explain it to him.” But to my surprise, you understand perfectly. In fact you write English so well, it seems like you studied in an English-speaking country.

That was so cool when you wrote:
"I think that it is possible to make a case for udder (yver) having something to do with the rip current, hand-milking the tits will give you a sort of ripcurrent when the milk bursts forth. And the deep trench that the current gouges out ends further out to sea where it lay down the sand in a form that may be seen as looking like an udder. (Take a look at aerial photographs of a coastline)"

Maybe this is how Juvre Sand formed. All I know is that just before Juvre Sand connected to Rømø as a beach, it was a sandbank-island. That's a low-lying sandy island with no vegetation, as it floods during storm tides or unusually high tides. If Juvre Sand was created from rip currents, it could have taken on an udder-shape and grown in size to ultimately rise above sea-level. So maybe Juvre Sand means “Udder Sand”.
Thanks for telling me to check aerial photographs of coastlines. I just came across an aerial photo at http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/dbird ... stline.jpg
Some of these underwater sand formations seem to resemble an udder at their far end!

The next best thing to contacting an expert in the Rømø dialect might be to contact the Rømø Local Historical Society. I believe their website has some e-mail addresses. So maybe that's how to find out why Thade Petersen thought Yre and Yver were related.

Well, I find it quite interesting to hear about these place-names ending in “ør” and then there's “Øresund”. I had no idea that “ør(e)” was so prevalent.

OK, I must not understand the term tønder land. Supposedly that's an acre or acres of land. You say that 13 tønderland is equivalent to 7 hectares. But since a hectare is 2.471 acres, that works out to about 16.4 acres, not 13. But maybe this is 13 Danish acres? I'm not surprised to hear that you were a farmer because you told me you own a farm. But I was surprised to hear that you own a farm.

“Riding the horses along the beach” sounds like a fun activity to me. But it certainly wasn't in old-time Denmark. I'm still trying to figure out why sandbars used to be called heste. I'm guessing it's because the “heste-hullet” could be big enough to swallow a horse. Whatever the reason, I like the name.

Thanks for the fun lesson on “ur”. Now I just need to learn how to pronounce it. It blows me away that you know English words I'm not familiar with! After all, English is my only language! But until today, I never heard of “scree” or “talus” or “archean”. I just found out these are all geological terms. Are you a geologist? Or a champ at Scrabble?

When you compared Ør to Ur in an earlier post, I began to wonder if Øre could be related to Ure meaning “udder” in any language. So I did a Google Search for udder +ure -your. And here's what I found:
The Scottish National Dictionary (SND) lists 4 definitions of ure, all coming from Scandinavian. The meanings are udder, drizzle, gravelly soil, and an eighth part of a Norse mark of weight, equivalent to an ounce. All of these entries were first recorded in the 1700s and each is believed to come from either the Old Norse of the Norwegian Vikings who invaded Scotland or the Old Norse of the Danish Vikings who invaded northern England. The Scottish word ure meaning “udder” is singled out as the only one of these words that originates from English, rather than directly from Old Norse. Although this word ure in the sense of “udder” is not first recorded until 1773 in Scottish, it “is found in Middle English and northern English dialects and may well have been one of the original group of borrowings reaching Scots via northern Middle English”, according to Scottish expert Graham Tulloch.
Today there is one place in northern England where the word ure or yuer is still used to mean “cow's udder”. East Riding in Yorkshire is that place, and the words' origin traces back to the Danes. You can find the entry for both variants of the word in the glossary of Yorkshire Folk-Talk at http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/Mi ... k/U-Y.html

After coming across this, I wondered – What's the relationship between England's Yorkshire and Denmark? Wikipedia gives us the answer. In the year 866 an army of Danish Vikings conquered York and renamed it Jórvík, making it the capital city of their new kingdom. Later the Danes would conquer even more areas of England, which together with the Jórvik Kingdom, comprised Danelaw. Whereas most of the Danelaw consisted of English land under Viking overlords, “it was in the Kingdom of Jórvík that the only truly Viking territory on mainland Britain was ever established” according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorkshire

A link from this site takes us to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorkshire_ ... and_accent
As related here, Yorkshire's East Riding dialect shares many similarities with the Danish language, particularly Jutlandic, according to Reverend MCF Morris, a Yorskhire rector and author of many books about Yorkshire including Yorkshire Folk-Talk quoted above. In The British Workman, he says, “Our East Yorkshire folk-speech has a very close relation with some of the Scandinavian dialects, notably those of Jutland.” He goes on to say that a speaker of the East Riding dialect “ might not have much difficulty in making himself understood by a Jutlander.” You can read all the fascinating details on how he proves this claim near the end of http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/Mi ... man12.html

Someone from eastern Yorkshire might find it even easier to communicate with a Jutlander from the Middle Ages than one today, if he were to bring up the word Ure “Udder”, similar in sound to the words Øre (1291) and Yre (1542), the two earliest names for Juvre (village on the island Rømø) recorded by the Ribe clergy. A person from Ribe on the Jutland Peninsula or from the nearby island Rømø is a Jutlander. The other names for Juvre - Iffuere, Jeffre, Iffre, Jyffre, Iuere – all recorded in the 1500s and 1600s, clearly resemble the Danish Yver and Swedish Juver, both meaning “Udder”. It seems that all the historic names of Juvre could mean “udder”.

In Old Norse, spoken by the Vikings, there are two names for udder: Júr and Júgr. Júr gave rise to the Norwegian Jur and also likely to the Dutch Low Saxon Juur and Uur, the Jutlandic Øre and Yre, the East Yorkshire Yuer and Ure, and the Scottish Ure. Meanwhile Júger gave rise to the Icelandic Júgur, and probably the Swedish Juver and Danish Yver.

Well, it's now time to move on to other topics –
In one of your earlier posts, you made reference to an upcoming birthday. So I wish you:
Tillykke med fødselsdagen - og mange flere på vej!
Sorry if this is late – or too early!

By the way, the Danish ↔ English dictionary on Freelang is very impressive. But although I found “Happy New Year!”, I couldn't find “Happy Birthday!” I know it's OK to say “Tillykke med fødselsdagen!” but I'm not sure about “Glædelig fødselsdag!” I didn't realize you were involved in the dictionary program. What a huge job to undertake! Bravo!

Thanks for all the info on Tønderland and Morgen. Just to set the record straight, I short-changed you when I said your 13 Tønderland is equivalent to 16.4 acres – it's actually about 17.93 acres. I was fascinated by your explanations as to why Morgen and Tønderland are so-called. And why sandbars were once called Heste.

Thanks for sharing your poem and philosophical point of view that Sisyphus is not to be pitied, but emulated. So now I picture you rolling a big rock up a sunlit mountain. That would be Solbjerg rolling a solbjerg up a solbjerg! :-)

I've enjoyed corresponding with you. Thanks for helping me out so much!
Mathea

Hi Mathea
You do like your udder explanation
And have compiled a lot of material, - thanks - all very interesting.
But I do think that ør means "gravel" in the context it is used.
Ur is from urd meaning stone (at least I think that is most probable).
Udder should come from êwâr (cannot write it precisely here) which should mean "something that swells"
Fanø - perhaps from "shimmering light"
Rømø - elongated rise in the terrain + ø (island)(rim? - rim island?)
When investigating the origin of words there are a lot of twists and turns that in my opinion not is to be trusted totally.
At least I have come across several instances where it to my mind is not much better than a guess.
Urd is also the name of one of the Norns - specifically the one that spins the thread of the past. (Nordic mythology)

Thanks for your birthday greeting - (7-May-1944)
I have added Tillykke med fødselsdagen - (congratulation on your birthday) - usually in English "Happy Birthday", - to the dictionary
Sometimes more informally "Du må have en god fødselsdag" (May you have a nice birthday) or "Jeg ønsker dig en god fødselsdag" (I wish you a nice/happy birthday)
Thank you!!
Right now I am going through it - editing - adding words/synonyms and grammatical articles to the nouns.
The program doesn't allow for too much explanation, so I usually focus on getting as many synonyms into it as possible.
But the freelang concept is very much to my liking.

Nice to have talked to you - do you have ancestors that hailed from Rømø/Fanø?
On my fathers side we come from Ærø - difficult to trace further back than the 1600s, due to the fact that the whole of the south of Jutland was under German rule, due to Denmark borrowing money from german lords earlier. (Niels Ebbesen and the bald Gerhard story) (Gerhard in Danish Grev Gert - Den kullede greve) Kullede (possibly the same root as cull in the meaning sheared/cut out) Kullede is usually translated as bald, but could also possibly mean close-cropped.

Hi Mathea
Your mentioning York made me think about the legend of Regnar Lodbrog (Regnar Fur Trousers/Breeches)
According to legend he fought King Ella and was taken prisoner.
He was thrown into a snake pit (Ormegård) and uttered the famous words:
"Grynte ville grisene om de kendte galtens nød"
(Grunt/oink would the pigs if they knew the predicament of the gelded boar)
(They had apparently also castrated him)
In some references (legends) it happened in London around 866.
In some other legends they tell of the revenge of the sons of Regnar - they defeat an English army in the vicinity of York and the oldest brother Ivar (the legless) who is the wisest makes an agreement with the English to cease hostility by getting as much land as a number of hides will cover. The Danes thereupon cut the hides into very thin strips and claim all land inside the perimeter of these strips. And again according to legend this should be around the York area, as far as I remember.
Rollo was another viking that settled in Normandy and one of his descendants William (the bastard) defeated the English army at "the battle by/of/at the grey appletree" (Norman Conquest)
Cheers
solbjerg

The towns you told me about named for their gravelly beach – Helsingør, Korsør, and Dragør – are all located on the island of Zealand or Amager, lying along one of the two main straits connecting the Baltic Sea to the Kattegat. Western Jutland is a long way off, and I don't think any gravelly beaches are there, for it seems the violent North Sea would have long ago pounded any gravel into fine sand. If that's the case, then western Jutlanders wouldn't have used the term øre unless it meant something other than “gravelly beach”. Until I find other coastal towns in western Jutland that are called _ør or _øre, I amiably disagree with you. :-)

You say “Udder should come from êwâr, which should mean ‘something that swells’.” In what language is êwâr? Is it a Scandinavian rune? I have not come across this form or meaning. The Online Etymology Dictionary, gives its earliest forms as Proto-Indo-European *udhr- and Proto-Germanic *udr- . It also tells us to compare “O.Fris., M.Du. uder, O.H.G. utar, Ger. Euter, and, with unexplained change of consonant, O.N. jugr”.

I've been wondering what the name Rømø meant. I didn't think anyone knew! So thanks for your fine explanation! Fanø and Ærø are wonderful names - “Shimmering-Light Island” and “Maple Island”. If I ever travel to Europe, I'd like to visit at least one such small island. But I don't know if anyone speaks much English on these small isles.

You asked if I have ancestors that hailed from Rømø or Fanø. Well, I might from over 1000 years ago when the Danes entered England. My father once told me that when he was in his 20s and 30s, people often thought he was Scandinavian. I just have one photo of him from that time and he looks like a handsome lean Dane, resembling the likes of Paul Newman or Dr. Stork. I remember my Mom showing me the snapshot, saying “Can you believe this was your Dad?!” My Dad was 48 when I was born. He was mainly of English extraction. His family had been in the US for centuries. My Mom's parents were both born in Ireland.

Thanks for telling me all about Ragnar Lodbrod and his sons. I never heard of them. I am aware that the Viking Rollo was the ancestor of the Norman conqueror and brutal King of England, William the Bastard. You didn't mention the one Viking who has gone down in history as a beloved King of England. That's Canute the Great. He was also King of Denmark, Norway, and parts of Sweden. Maybe he's not very well known in Scandinavia?

By the way, someone named Ulfr posted a question on the Forum Freelang (en français), which I think only you can answer, since it concerns Old Norse.

Hi Mathea
:-)
I quickly found Harboøre, Vorupør in my old school Atlas on the westcoast of Jutland (scale 1:1.5 Mill)

There may possibly be more "ør" on Zealand. In the 13-1400s and longer there was an abundance of herrings in the Baltic Sea and this of course meant that a lot of people caught herrings especially at the south end of Øresund on both the Danish and "Swedish" side (they didn't even need nets but could shovel the herrings aboard.) - (More people - more locations named is my reasoning here)
My attempt at phonetic notation for "yver" comes from "Politikkens Ordbog" (that also carries some etymology) and is their way of trying to show how the "FællesGermanic" old word should be pronounced in Danish. (fælles means common/mutual)
Indoeuropean "êwdhr" (written here - not quite correct as I am not able - like in ewar to write the characters correctly here)

About Rømø - if we should follow Peter Sellers pronounciation of room in the Pink Panther (I would like a "røm") Rømø would probably be interpreted as the Room Island :-), which wouldn't be totally unreasonable :-)
But Rim Island is an acceptable and very probable explanation to me.
Phonetic notation is of course different from language to language - sorry about that.

About the gravel and sand - gravel can differ widely in granular size and sand likewise - where they are close in granular size to each other it will be difficult to distinguish one from the other I think.
At the Balka Beach especially and to some extent at Dueodde on Bornholm the size of the granules are very fine - the sand from Balka can be used for hour glasses.
The reason is that the sand comes from sandstone and not granite.
Sandstone by the way wears away the drills much faster than granite. (about 3 times as fast)

About King Canute (Knud den Store/ Canute the great) I assumed he was well-known (he is buried in Winchester Cathedral) so I didn't mention him.
By the way he spent most of his time in England (probably he was fascinated by Emma and I suppose for the most part the more educated people in England - in the circles he frequented) :-)
Most people in Denmark know of him.

Most of the younger generations in Denmark speak some English.

Thank you for sharing some of your linage
My grandmother's cousin had a father that had lived while Napoleon was reigning, this father took a young wife at the age of 85 and had this son that was my grandmother's cousin. My grandmother was born in 1885

I will take a look in the French forum - thanks for the heads-up!

p.s. lodbrog - lodden (furry) brog (cloth) possibly a connection to brocade?)
p.p.s.The sand on the west coast of Jutland is for the most part made up of rather large granules - at least compared to the sand at Balka beach or Dueodde.
The action of the tides and and the waves on the west coast of Jutland will I think tend to carry the finer particles out to sea, this explanation in my opinion supports the fact that the sand/gravelly granules are larger there than in many other places of beaches in Denmark. The finer sand on the beach is also carried inland by the wind to form sand dunes there (i.e. Råbjerg mile!)
Cheers
solbjerg

Mathea wrote:Hi Solbjerg,

The towns you told me about named for their gravelly beach – Helsingør, Korsør, and Dragør – are all located on the island of Zealand or Amager, lying along one of the two main straits connecting the Baltic Sea to the Kattegat. Western Jutland is a long way off, and I don't think any gravelly beaches are there, for it seems the violent North Sea would have long ago pounded any gravel into fine sand. If that's the case, then western Jutlanders wouldn't have used the term øre unless it meant something other than “gravelly beach”. Until I find other coastal towns in western Jutland that are called _ør or _øre, I amiably disagree with you. :-)
You say “Udder should come from êwâr, which should mean ‘something that swells’.” In what language is êwâr? Is it a Scandinavian rune? I have not come across this form or meaning. The Online Etymology Dictionary, gives its earliest forms as Proto-Indo-European *udhr- and Proto-Germanic *udr- . It also tells us to compare “O.Fris., M.Du. uder, O.H.G. utar, Ger. Euter, and, with unexplained change of consonant, O.N. jugr”.

I've been wondering what the name Rømø meant. I didn't think anyone knew! So thanks for your fine explanation! Fanø and Ærø are wonderful names - “Shimmering-Light Island” and “Maple Island”. If I ever travel to Europe, I'd like to visit at least one such small island. But I don't know if anyone speaks much English on these small isles.

You asked if I have ancestors that hailed from Rømø or Fanø. Well, I might from over 1000 years ago when the Danes entered England. My father once told me that when he was in his 20s and 30s, people often thought he was Scandinavian. I just have one photo of him from that time and he looks like a handsome lean Dane, resembling the likes of Paul Newman or Dr. Stork. I remember my Mom showing me the snapshot, saying “Can you believe this was your Dad?!” My Dad was 48 when I was born. He was mainly of English extraction. His family had been in the US for centuries. My Mom's parents were both born in Ireland.

Thanks for telling me all about Ragnar Lodbrog and his sons. I never heard of them. I am aware that the Viking Rollo was the ancestor of the Norman conqueror and brutal King of England, William the Bastard. You didn't mention the one Viking who has gone down in history as a beloved King of England. That's Canute the Great. He was also King of Denmark, Norway, and parts of Sweden. Maybe he's not very well known in Scandinavia?

By the way, someone named Ulfr posted a question on the Forum Freelang (en français), which I think only you can answer, since it concerns Old Norse.

Bognor is one of the oldest recorded Anglo-Saxon place names in Sussex. In a document of 680 AD it is referred to as Bucgan ora meaning Bucge's (a female Anglo-Saxon name) shore, or landing place (in other words "gravelly beach") :-)
Cheers
solbjerg

Hi Mathea
I found this regarding granular sizes - it seems that granules between 0.0625 mm and 2 mm is considered sand, while gravel is from 2 mm to 64 mm
Found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand
1.99 mm and 2.01 mm will be hard to distinguish by sight or feel alone :-)
Cheers
solbjerg

Hi Mathea
I came across the word "oldemor" which today means great-grandmother. In the old days (that is prior to 1600) it meant grandmother, but then changed meaning, this means that your reference to "Ripe oldemor" (literary Ripe old mother) actually could mean Ripe grandmother as you suggested.
I am sorry that I hadn't investigated thoroughly before writing my answer.
Cheers
Solbjerg
p.s. Ripe should properly have been written Ribe - Sorry